


Upon Appointment

by Dribbledscribbles



Category: The Magnus Archives
Genre: Other, and karma ensues, in which we get to see what happens after Jonah enters his office on the day of the Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:47:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29271225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dribbledscribbles/pseuds/Dribbledscribbles
Summary: The Eye had to wait to tell him, of course. He’d never come up willingly otherwise.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 70





	Upon Appointment

The Eye had to wait to tell him, of course. He’d never come up willingly otherwise. 

It waited as the Change spread over the world like a hideous blanket. 

It waited as Jonah strolled untouched through the hellscape, the fact of his safety like so much golden proof that he’d been right. He had successfully ruined this world and he was its king. 

It waited as he strolled up the newborn tower of the Panopticon and paused to beam cheerfully at Rosie; dear little Nosy Rosie, back in her proper place outside his door.

It waited even after he threw open the doors to his office that was his throne room that was the roost on which the Eye had perched itself. Jonah made words at it. Greetings and thanks and—oh, if it’d had a mouth, it might have laughed—an insistence that the Eye was welcome. It was really no trouble, all the hard work he’d put in. Anything to get the Eye what it wanted.

It waited as Jonah waited for…something. Yes, yes, it was fine getting a lovely new dose of worldwide trauma to sample from. Quite nice. Sure. But shouldn’t there be something else, considering his station? A crown of eyes? A burst of new power? Or…

Or a chat, maybe? Just a little taste of what Jon received so regularly. He’d listened in on that talk he had with Basira once upon a time; about how heavily the Eye had been shoving against that door in his head, trying to offer a tide of Knowledge he was too foolish and ungrateful to acknowledge as a gift. Jonah would do better with such things. He’d be appreciative of true omniscience. The Eye had to Know that.

Hearing this, for the first time in over two centuries of worship and feeding, the Eye deigned to speak directly to Jonah Magnus.

It told him everything. 

About who wore the Watcher’s Crown. About the king of the ruined world. About the delightfully awful journey of nightmares he’d traverse as he approached the Panopticon. About how the Eye would happily adorn him with all the little treasures and tortures and murders he asked for. About how long the Eye had waited to Know him in person, to wrap the grotesque world around him and it like the theatre it was always meant to be. 

And about how all he would have to do to take his rightful place in the Changed world as its Pupil-partner for eternity…

…was kill the simpering nobody of a placeholder the Eye would have hanging like a bullseye when he and Martin Blackwood stepped through the door.

Jonah Magnus knew. Jonah Magnus understood. 

Jonah Magnus screamed out a terror of such betrayal and comprehending horror that Terminus could taste it from every corner of its territory. But not half so richly as the Eye did.

It waited one last delicious moment as Jonah raced back to the locked doors to claw and shriek and beg and barter with things he did not have. The Eye hoisted him up in-between breaths. As the narcotic of Pupilhood took hold and his mind began the expected dizzy melt into horrific euphoria, he managed a final word on the subject:

“Why?”

Wordlessly, the Eye explained that it could have interceded, perhaps even spared him, but it would not. And it was not out of malice, or because it lacked affection for Jonah Magnus. It recognized he had been briefly interesting, even halfway useful for a time. No, it was because the Eye had simply grown bored of him, while it would never grow bored of Jonathan Sims.

Jonah Magnus was merely something for the Eye to watch, to know, and ultimately discard.

Now. Repeat after it.

Because Jonah can do nothing else, he does. Reciting the blissful terror of the world until the time of discarding comes. As the cabin door opens, he tells the Eye what he sees. About a rightful king taking his first steps into an empire he so desperately, wonderfully loathes, of the guilt and dread that rival the weight of his power, of the blessed slaughter of an enemy—the first of many, set to prepare him for the last vital death that will place him on his throne…

The Eye observes.

The Eye delights.

The Eye waits.

And somewhere down in the pit of drugged joy and spasming secondhand fear, the mind of an old man begins to scream once more.


End file.
